DJ Alexander wins highly successful WSOP Flip and Go event

The 2021 WSOP Event #20: GGPoker $1,000 Flip & Go No-Limit Hold'em is a new event this year. The format and title are both entirely new to the series. This is because the game is a sop to the WSOP's online partner, GGPoker, and this is GGPoker's first year partnering during a live series.

Registration ends at the beginning of each flight. Everyone in the flight is seated at an eight-person table with a 20,000 chip stack. What follows is a round of forced-all-in-pineapple. Everyone gets three hole cards and goes all-in preflop. On the flop, players must discard one hole card. This continues until one person has all the chips at the table.

These initial flights had been running for days, favoring players with deep pockets. Daniel Negreanu, for one, blew nine entries chasing a cash. Lucky for him, he scraped in. There was no tenth flight to enter if he'd busto'd number nine.

Once these initial flights are finished, players are then combined into a new field. This new field plays down to one player in a good old-fashioned no-limit hold'em freezeout. Naturally, chips stacks for this section begin at 160,000, with blinds suitably raised at the start to 1,000-2,000 and a 2,000 big blind ante.

When all the multiple attempts were tallied up, the total number of entries for the event was 1,232. That put $1,103,600 in the pot after rendering the rake unto Caesars.

Phase Two

Everyone who survived the initial flight was guaranteed a min-cash of at least $2,000. The overall winner was set for $180,665. Ultimately that went to DJ Alexander. DJ is a nickname, not his job title.

Despite the crazy structure and large(ish) field, the final table contained several big names. Bracelet winner Fred Goldberg managed to make it to the final table with a healthy stack, but ultimately was the first out in 8th.

Jake Schwartz and David Peters — with 3.2 million and 36.8 million in tournament cashes respectively — were in play as well. Shwartz and Peters took the third and fourth spot, leaving Jason Beck and DJ Alexander to battle it out heads up.

Heads-up play did not last long. Alexander picked up the A♠J❤️ and Beck the A♣4❤️. Both players got it in preflop and the board ran out K❤️Q♦️2❤️T♠5❤️ for a neat victory for Alexander.

"It's awesome! It might not look like it but I am obviously very happy," he said in his post-game interview. "I have been here before. It feels great to get over the hump."

Beck won $111,715 for second place.

Featured image source: PokerGO by Enrique Malfavon